Sugarwood Blog

Well, I completed most of the center section in September and started on the turnouts for the right side.

To Riverside

However, when I was preparing to lay the track for Ozzy’s Pets, I realized that, without the structures, the track might not be in the correct location when I got to building the industries. With that revelation, I decided not to glue down the track for the industries along the backdrop.

That started me on a side track to put together the structures for those industries. Most industries will have some form of kitbash. Check out the Industries page on the Sugarwood website.

The cover photo above and the following three photos show the center section less industries’ track. For operations testing, I will have track, it just won’t be secured in place until I have the building’s footprints set.

So what took up the rest of the month?

As the title says - Squirrels

I got distracted.

My friend Doug Hicks gave me some kit parts, including the Walthers’ Hardwood Furniture Company. However, the full building is too much. So, I cut it down to half the width. My initial thought was to use it as part of Ozzy’s Pets.

Ozzy’s Pets

But that didn’t work for me, so the building will now be part of PrintPrint.ca in Purcell.

PrintPrint.ca

As can be seen, I started on the loading dock. Squirrel!!!

Where is Purcell?

I also decided that the Sugarwood website needed to be updated.

In doing so, I decided the Sugarwood Industrial Railroad needed to be bigger than my 8′ x 10′ office.
See the website for the story, but the image below should help.

So, what I have been calling “The Bakery” and “The Center Section” is Sugarwood. The right side is Purcell. There will be some kind of a scenic divide running from the front corner to the rear corner on the right, separating the two areas. I am thinking a highway overpass, as can be seen in the cover
and PrintPrint.ca photos.

Oh-Oh Squirre!!!

I laid the major part of the Sugarwood Trans-Load spur, and I put the valance all around the layout.

By the way

There was VanRail this year, and I was busy all three days.

Checkout VanRail.org for more information.

• Friday, I dispatched Doug Hicks’ BC Rail Squamish Sub layout and attended the Social at Scott Calvert’s.
  
  
• Saturday, I dispatched Gary Hinshaw’s Tehachapi BC layout and attended the clinic after the No-Host dinner, “Less than Car Load Operations” given by Paul Clegg. This was a very enlightening look at how the railroads used boxcars. I have always tended to think that boxcars went from industry to industry. Basically, load to unload. And this tends to be true today, but before the 1960s/1970s was not the case.
  I highly recommend catching this clinic if it is given at any meet you may attend.
  
  
• Sunday, I was train crew at Anthony Craig’s Kettle Valley Model Railway layout.

All together a fun weekend.

Oh yeah, then there was the Victoria Train Show, where I displayed the NMRA, PNR, 7th Division table, and also had Smart Trains there,

Still no power. This month???

I think that covers it.

Plans for October

• Build the 5 remaining turnouts for Purcell.
  
  
• Complete the major track alignment for Purcell.
  
  
• Pick a DCC system. I have CVP’s EasyDCC, which I have built that includes a computer power supply that provides 3.3VDC, 5VDC, 12VDC, DCC, and JMRI. Or I can use the DCC-EX that I have. I will need 12VDC for my lighting and 5VDC for automations.. Decisions, decisions
  
  
• Install DCC, 12vdc, 5vdc buses
  
  
• Install feeder wires
  
  
• Connect the DCC system. Whichever one I pick.

Until next month.

Victor