A few photos of the humble beginnings and the shortcomings...

 Well I need to get caught up, have a lot of pics of the progress. It all started with a wall. I wanted to do it right and was starting with a pretty flakey wall of 100 yr old concrete. I chipped out about a hundred lbs of dust and crap and then parged and sealed the wall, sparing no expense. Everything is properly sealed and built with metal framing and then spray insulated for maximum resistance to any water leaks (I have now gone through spring and didn't get any water, so a success!) With the wall complete, we got to ainstall the main yard. The progress is rapid as I am combining parts of my fathers layout, a friend Steves layout that we disassembled and thence will add a few sections that we will do ourselves. The great thing is that almost all the framework for the bench work is there, just need to shoehorn it all in...and figure out where to put everything the layout is displacing!

The Wall...

The mess...

The slave driver chastising the migrant workers...

The lack of headroom... (This is the shortcoming, I am a headbanger I have discovered)

Using boxes of rolling stock to brace up the yard while we "glue" it to the wall...In theory I am thinking we are building a record size shelf layout!

More to come by the weekend!

The new KIP yard

 Well it’s been awhile and of course the old KIP had to come down. But to honour my father Bud, I have gotten my little crew of guys (Mike, Josh, Ray and Andrew) to agree to go with continuing the Kipawa Interprovincial as the name of the new layout. We have the main yard installed and now plan on it doing the full circumference of the basement and it will of course include a logging area as well as a mine (same as the old KIP) I hope my group can live up to the standard set by my father, Gord, Colin and their bunch!

Hope you have access to your blog up there Dad! Just for you, first loco video is of a CP Tuscan Alco...

The Canadian Arrives on the KIP

...and its here! Sure is nice to finally realize one of Dads dreams and run the Canadian around at least the couple of curves it could negotiate! Thanks Gord for coming over and helping figure out how to get this out of the box, that was a job, but I think it was worth it.

Of course there was more than just the Canadian that would have passed through the area! The ONR must just be taking delivery of the TEE Train that is destined to be painted into the Northlander. Now if I can only figure out how to get the decoder to stop announcing Dutch Station stops...

The Canadian is now on schedule to arrive on the KIP. In the next couple of weeks I will be down and will video the arrival and post it here. Might try and set up breakfast and coffee if there is anyone available.

Not exactly idle

No new work on the KIP but still idle hands were kept busy in the back yard.

What it was

Last year the back wall collapsed

What it looks like now: Top soil and sod to be added.



Action over the weekend

Work on the abandon mine at churcher nears completion.

The goose is now DCC with sound. However, even though I notched up CV 135, the volume is still very low.

Took an inspection trip of the line:



How the loggers and miners get to work

Back on March 14 I showed a test of a vehicle to be used to get the workers to work. It was decided that while the conveyance was a good one, it was not designed for mountain, logging use.

So the search continued for a more suitable vehicle. Eureka!! one has been found. The following clip shows the maiden run of the new goose that will be employed in getting folks to their jobs. Just watching it go around the layout is a joy and Wow are there ever lots of good photo opportunities that I will publish in the future. Now all that remains is to figure how to dismantle it so a sound decoder can be added, --- more to follow.