Steamup at Dr Dan's

Last Saturday, I was invited to a steamup in Woodside, CA at the home of "Dr Dan". This steam friendly layout features two main tracks forming a large oval on a waist height table and a third main track running along the other two and then extending to a graden area where the ground slopes up so the track is only a few inches off the ground. In addition, a "geared engine only" loop is included. I did manage to run my (radio controlled) Accucraft Superior light over that track.
As can been seen in the gallery by clicking on the picture, a wide variety of engines were present.

A new train carrier (Also known as a car)
After a long wait, I took delivery of my brand new Volvo V70R yesterday. You can see a few snapshots of it in the gallery, here.
I caught just enough rain on the way back from the dealership to mess up the great job they did at cleaning it...

Who said switches needed two blades?

I'm building a single blade switch. While these are common in light and human powered railways serving mines, there is at least one such switch on a "main line" in Snaefell on the Isle of Man. To see a more pictures in the gallery, click on the image above.

The addition of this switch will complete the layout's passing track and provide an extra spur which will use the space left when I removed most of my gauge one track. The spur will serve a small mine (although in 1:8 scale nothing is ever really small!).