This blog is pretty much in temporary hiatus due to medical problems. Hopefully it will return when I can type a simple sentence without 10 or more corrections. 

I still have hopes that the Owl Mountain parts to complete the SP C-9 stand in from a Bachmann HO 2-8-0 will come and I can convert the 3 engines I have waiting to make them available for helper and local freight duty on the ready line at Port Costa. Jason Hill has had medical issues as well. 

My attempts to build a replica in HO of the SP station and engine facilities at Port Costa and the mainline trains running through on the Martinez Subdivision of the Western Division 1950-1955 remains unfinished. It still needs replacement of most of the mockup structures, the turntable and water tank, finishing the mainline track and the rebuild of the east end of the yard with the oil track. 

I started a PA-1 6009 rebuild of a P2K 1998 vintage engine and have progressed to getting the LocoFi installation working and recognizing both the PA-1 and an earlier F-7 installation as active. Both need LED headlights an MARS lights installed but I have not researched the way to add them. For the PA-1 the goal was to model one of the short Oakland-Sacramento services that ran several times a day like the current Capitol services. Now if I can just get that promised Oxford Miniatures HO 1950 Studebaker to add the parking lot between the freight house and roundhouse.

The English railways modeling in 4mm Scale is now just a memory and boxes of OO/4mm equipment  that will probably never run again. I have sold off all the GWR stuff associated with the Brixham branch and Dartmouth/Kingswear line. I still have all of the Southern Railway (1945-47) equipment and structures. Probably the SR N-1 Moguls are the only running locomotives. They have basic DCC installed. All of the tiny 0-4-4 and 2-4-0 DJM locomotives have failed. I never spent the $300 for the recent LSWR Cross Country sets which would have also been used to Padstow in the late SR period.  I still follow the products made for the UK market for the Southern Railway. One of my great grandfathers on my fathers side was the signalman at Sydenham Hill station just the other end of the Penge tunnel in the late Victorian and Edwardian era. 

I had planned to only write the first line of this blog post.  I ramble. It has been difficult as my hands are having a hard time staying on the home keys of the keyboard...