I’ve been making progress on the Central Prairie Railway… in fits and starts.
I’m trying not to beat myself up about the (lack of) progress. It’s a hobby, after all, and it shouldn’t feel like work.
Every now and then, I get the urge to work on the layout and I do a bit of track laying, or cleanup, or… just thinking.
Back in January I actually moved some cars!
Unfortunately, that train then sat there for more than 4 months, until today (June 5), when I did some more switching.
So you can see why I feel a little guilty about not working on the layout very much.
However, when I think about it more, I have made progress. A lot of progress. It’s just not exactly layout progress.
My layout room had become a bit of a disaster with a tremendous amount of clutter. A lot of that had to do with a lack of storage, so this spring, I made a concerted effort to get rid of the clutter.
I started with getting some MDF boards to form the base for the new layout. I then painted them plain brown, and started mounting them on the existing shelf brackets around the layout room.
As I worked my way around the room, I moved bookcases under the layout and loaded them up with books and layout bits and so forth, reducing the clutter as I went. By the time I finished with the layout base, the clutter was pretty much gone… or at least it was contained!
After that massive effort, I took a break from working on the layout for a couple of months.
Now I’m back in the mood and I am ready to work again. I plan to run the bus wires around the room to lay the foundation for laying track. It’s an annoying job so I figure I should do it all at once and get it over with.
The tools are charging – I think. The ancient Dremel battery doesn’t look like it’s charging but I’ll see tomorrow morning if it is holding a charge.
(the Craven “A” tobacco container in the background contains screws. I don’t smoke but decades ago my parents used to roll their own cigarettes and we had lots of these containers)
That’s where I’m at now. Hopefully I will have some more progress to report soon, but if I don’t, well, it’s a hobby and I’ll try not to let it worry me!
