HO Progress Report

Summer 2004

Nazareth

The decision was made to extend Nazareth across the peninsula to add depth to the scene. Further, in an effort to upgrade our scenery, we also decided to ensure all city streets would include sidewalks, parking lots, mailboxes etc as befitting a busy town. The supports for the extended upper level town were made to look like concrete walls and are now completely installed. The platform pieces have also been cut and fit. Large Bachman Spectrum building were assembled and painted. These building and other buildings are now being arranged to fill the new space. Its clear we will need additional structures to do this. The old trolley line was pulled up in the new are with the idea to use a router to create tracks in the street instead of the old exposed flex track. A wonderful new idea to use craft foam as streets has been perfected and we will relay the trolley track and use the foam to represent the streets. This innovative technique looks like a winner.

Mountain Line

The mountain line is being reconfigured with rural mining and logging operations to be represented. Progress here is not as dramatic because the summer work on the club building stole the talent needed to advance this project.

Lake and Power Plant

Considerable progress has been made in creating the supporting structure for the lake , river, and power plant. Scenery in the area is also progressing nicely. It’s a special pleasure to see the plywood disappear and mountains and green hills emerge.

Future Plans

The HO members are definitely pointed in the direction of upgrading existing scnery and establishing higher standards for all future work. We also spent a considerable number of hours this spring and summer learning about DCC. What is it? How can it help us during shows? What are the key differentiators between the various systems available? The decision to go to DCC gradually looks like it will happen, but no formal decision has been made and no system has been selected yet. If you are an HO modeler and building layouts and evaluating exciting new power systems appeal to you, stop by most any Monday night and see what we are up to.