An up-date on the progress of the layout. The wiring and trackwork are going hot and heavy. The Pacific Northwest region of the National Model Railroad Association is going to hold a mini meet up-stairs at the community center in late January or early February and they want to tour our layout, so our goal is to have it at least partly operational when they hold their meet so we are busy bees right now. This will also give the club some pubilicity in the region and a source for possible new members.

Rick

Good luck with this new schedule, Rick. Generally, one considers that this kind of event provides an incentive for faster and better work, but considering the way you've been progressing on this huge project, I doubt you need any incentive...

While having a goal such as an open house can provide the motivation needed to accomplish a lot, I agree with Frederic. You guys certainly don't appear to need motivation. A few 'before and after' pics of what you guys have accomplished in the past couple of years should speak volumes!

A milestone was achieved tonight, the first train running on layout power did a run from Tallman to Irvinville and back.

I agree we have the incentive open house or not, but I think after witnessing what happened tonight our incentive just went into hyperdrive, we actually ran our first train in over 6 1/2 years.

Rick

Wow. Did you loose any members during those years, and were you able to recruit new members during the excavating period?

Your progress after finishing the basement have been extremly impressing.

Before the flood and excavation we were at 25 members. We dropped to as low as 12 to 13 during the excavation. During that time we had a number of curious folks drop by, but when they saw what we were doing they left and never returned no doubt thinking that we were never going to complete the task and actually build a model railrod. However we did gain 3 members during that period.

Since the completion of the excavation project in August of 08 we are up to 18 members and we are about to vote in another new member next month and have 2 more prospective members, so by mid year we could be at 21.

Rick

A huge congratulations is in order to you guys! That is a milestone, especially after everything you guys have been through. Way to go! A big golden spike ceremony will definitely be in order real soon.

And to add to the Motivation, I talked to the head of the annual Southern Pacific in Oregon Convention last night. He plans to have the convention in the Oregon City/ Clackamas area in 2011 and he wants the Club to be on the layout tour. So there is another target out there that we can shoot for.

Rick

Rick, . .Sorry this has taken so long, but as you know, we've been flyin' IFR [:-sick] for the past four weeks.

Rick asked me to post some pictorial updates of our club's layout. Our most recent contributions come from fellow member, Morgan,

who took these nice pictures:

LOOKING NORTH, TALLMAN'S FIRST INDUSTRY:



LOOKING WEST, LEBANON'S MAINLINE:



LOOKING EAST, SANTIAM'S TEMPORARY CROSSINGS:

I just went back through this thread and it is absolutely amazing how far you guys have come since the first posting in January of this year! You guys are on fire and it's looking great.

Hey, Allen...

I've been following the action and see that the turnouts are 'constructed' and not 'manufactured'. Are you guys using a jg system like Fast Tracks to make the turnouts or are you having them made up for you?

Hi Russ, . .Yes, we are using Fast Tracks to build our turnouts. Prior to and after beginning our benchwork,

we built and stockpiled a number of them. Several (curved) were scratch-built from plans as well. The supply

has dwindled as we have made progress in laying track, so Dean has returned to the workroom to build some

more. I think that most people discover that multiple builds yields faster and better results.

And it looks like you're using Fast Tracks jigs for the straight tracks as well? I have the Fast Tracks rail bender myself and will be using it on a section of curved this weekend. They make great products...

An Up-date:

Well we got hit again with a water leak, this time it was because of the cold weather we have been having. I am told that many years ago the community center installed a refrigerator that used an ice maker, so they plumbed copper tubing from the main water supply. But instead of routing the supply through the basement ( I don't know if this was done before we moved in or not ) and into the fridge, they routed it through the attick. Well that attick doesn't have any heat supplied to it, so in the summer it gets very hot and in the winter it gets very cold so the copper tubing burst from the ice, then it got above freezing yesterday and leaked down the ceiling through the kitchen and down to the basement.

The majority of water came down where there was no layout, however the staging area got wet and part of Tallman got wet, thankfully the homosote is painted and crossing our fingers it won't bubble. And cross our fingers again the ceiling area that was effected won't have to be replaced.


Last year we had consecutive days of sub freezing temperatures at this time and it didn't break, in fact nothing broke plumbing wise. I am thinking that this was installed within the last year, and not many years ago as the caretaker would like us to believe. Also the same caretaker said that since it was in the attick and the tubing was in the ceiling insulation he thought it wouldn't burst....well, he was wrong.

The community center has a handyman (if you can call him that) that probably installed the supply. If that is true, this is the same moron that painted the siding of the building that the Club room is in, when we put in our bathroom of course we installed some vents, so instead of masking them, he chose to paint our bathroom vents shut. He also poured a concrete walkway that was pitched toward the building rather than away from the it, so rain run-off would flow toward the foundation rather than away from it.

Rick, . .I stopped by this morning and saw the results of the latest mini-flood. I also noticed a portion of track (South siding) in Tallman which separated from it's cork base. It's disheartening to see this happen after all the hard work we have put in.