Recent Entries

• I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

  by Rick Phipps May 16, 2016
  As the country song goes, I get by with a little help from my frinds and in this case it is with the decisions about the layout and the response I got from my last blog. As my earlier blog stated, I had gotten burned out from working on a layout that wasn't matching what I had hoped to achieve and w...
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• A Decision Not Easily Made...

  by Rick Phipps May 14, 2016
  I have been running around in my mind for five months the question of whether to get out of the hobby or not. When I first started this hobby it was because of a friend of mind who had built an HO scale layout with his son over the years and they were constantly inviting me over to see it operate. I...
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• Finally...........The Shack lives again!

  by Rick Phipps May 24, 2013
  Anyone of you that has been keeping up with me knows the conundrum I have been in for the last six months. For those of you who don't, a little history. I have been working at getting my Shack to a point to where I could comfortably set up a small HO scale layout. It is located in a 10' X 12' "shack...
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• A Reawakening .... Of Sorts.

  by Rick Phipps March 15, 2013
  Today while sitting in the recliner I had an epiphany of sorts. I had went to the local library to kill some time and came across a book by Linn Westcott titled "Model Railroading with John Allen".         Now for some of you, immediately thoughts and visions of his Gorre ...
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• A New Beginning...

  by Rick Phipps November 24, 2012
  Anyone who has been following my progress on my "shack" knows that my layout has been a long time in coming. With not having any room that I and the CEO (better known as my wife) could agree on I got the idea of taking my 10'X12' "shack" and turning it into my first small layout. As I began the...
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• The Shack........one year later

  by Rick Phipps March 19, 2012
  This month marks a year ago when I started in earnest to turn a 10' X 12' "shack" into my layout. Since I didn't have any room in the house to do one..........ok, a room in the house that the wife would relinquish.........I decided to take one of the two buildings in the back yard and make it my ded...
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• Foam or not to foam......that is the question/.

  by Rick Phipps February 10, 2012
  Before you begin to wonder, this blog is not about Cujo foaming at the mouth nor is it some twisted form of MacBeth. It is the age old question of whether as you begin your layout, should you layer it in foam or leave it bare. I have read views from all sides. From those that talk about it's ability...
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• OK, so maybe eyeballing it was not the best thing....

  by Rick Phipps December 7, 2011
  Okay, if you are an intermediate or a pro, you can move on. There's nothing here to see. LOL If you are a newbie, boy have I got some info that may save you some trouble don the line.Though I don't have the layout wired yet I was able to run a small consist on the outer and inner loops by using my p...
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• Trial and error.....

  by Rick Phipps September 5, 2011
  I am getting close to the end of my first kit bash and I must say that it has been an adventure. Being that it was a kit and being familiar with building model cars in the past I thought that this would be fairly straightforward. Boy, was I wrong. The thing about model railroading, at least for...
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• Not only about trains....

  by Rick Phipps June 18, 2011
  When I first got into this hobby I knew that I was going to be testing some skills that I had and learning others that I didn't. As I looked at my friend's layout the first time and looking at the scenery and listening to the locomotives and the various other sounds, I realized there was a lot more ...
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