Everybody who regularly reads my blog should be well aware of the fact that Jay is big time into airplanes, and especially flying his RC airplanes. He has filled the basement and his workshop with assembled, half-assembled, kits, and pieces of RC airplanes.

Last summer, though, I noticed that he was losing steam with the airplanes. He spent way more time playing with the CNC Router and his 3D printer. Due to some other circumstances beyond our control at the moment, his desire to fly the RC planes has dropped even lower. I understand as my hobbies go through periods of highs and lows, too. I go hot-and-heavy with cross stitching for a while, and then that is put aside in favor of sewing, then the weather improves and I find myself playing in the dirt more than sewing.

Lately Jay has started to play with his model trains more. He has always wanted to have a large layout where he can have multiple trains running all at one time.

 

 

Airplanes were moved around and lumber was purchased. Jay decided that he wanted to build the train layout in half of the space at the end of the basement.

 

 

 

He started with 2×4’s and plywood.

From what I can tell in the magazines (yes, I’ve read them and now subscribe to one of them for Jay) the majority of the railroad modelers will pick a specific railroad and then model a portion of that track.

Jay doesn’t want to do this. He just wants to build a generic layout for his trains to run on.

 

 

So we have what I refer to as Bench 3, which is where the city will be located.

And yes, these jets will remain where they are for the time being.

 

 

 

 

In the middle we have where the yard will be going, or so I’m told.

 

 

 

 

Then Bench 1 will hold the rural section of the tracks.

I think that in our rural setting we will have a beef farm. That way I don’t have to figure out how to make N-Scale fields with crops growing in them. I just have to create a pasture and find some N-Scale cattle.

 

When Jay really started to build this layout he was working 2nd shift. I would wait until he got home from work to talk with him for a little bit and then I would go to bed. When I woke up in the morning I would go downstairs to see how much more he got done. Then when I got home from work I would take another walk down there to see what else he had worked on before having to leave the house. Let me show you how busy he was…

Day 1….

 

Day 2….

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 3.

I would go to sleep at night with the sound of the trains running around these tracks because this area of the basement is right under our bedroom.

Thank goodness he doesn’t have any engines that can blow their whistle!

 

 

 

As soon as the last piece of track was installed for the outside loop he got out some cars and two engines to get the train going.

 

 

 

 

 

Then he added a switch with some sidings… or whatever they are called.

All I know is every time I looked I think there was another section of track added.

 

 

 

And more loops placed in the layout…

 

I thought that was bad until I got home and discovered this…

 

 

 

 

Perhaps that pile doesn’t look very big, but all of those boxes are for box cars. One per box. When I saw that pile it looked like there was at least 100 boxes there. Of course, I think that you can see about half of his inventory on the tracks in this picture.

He gets one train going on the outer loop in one direction, and another going on the inner loop in the opposite direction and he just watches them. Like fish in an aquarium.

 

 

 

He has changed the layout a few times, but I think that we’re getting close to what will finally make him happy.

Then we get to start on the scenery. He has called his Finishing department in for help on that. Yikes! I can slop some stain on wood and poly it, but I don’t think that I’m very good at this scenery stuff. It should be quite the learning curve!