I've decided to start a blog just to keep myself motivated on my projects. That being said, a little history on the first project I'm going to post about.
It started when I was a young kid. Every year my parents neighbor would set up this train set, complete with tunnel/mountain, town, etc. I can remember being excited to go look at the setup year after year. Well, years ago he passed away, and the tradition stopped. His daugher however one year took it on herself to set it up and I remember her doing so. Well, unfortunately, she also passed away this past spring, but before she left this world, she asked the family if there was anything that we would like from the house for memory sake.
I really wasn't expecting to receive it, but I asked what was going to happen to the train set. Well, she said if I wanted it it was mine. So, my parents packed everything up and, well it filled their mini-van, and brought it to our house. It's been sitting in boxes and piles in the basement for the past few months. This holiday weekend, I got motivated a bit and cleaned the basement up and made room to at least make a fair attempt at getting it all set up.
Anyway, I started setting up the platform, and found that in fact there were extra boards for the platform, which I did not realize until I had started. The platform basically consists of 8, 8 foot 1x12 boards fastened to two saw horses. I found the boards labeled and have at this point got them resting on top of the saw horses, when I realized: "I'm going to need screws to fasten these down. I wonder if they are in any of these boxes or if I'm going to need to make a run to the hardware store."
At this point I called my parents to see if they had possably noticed if there were any screws in the boxes. Well, they didn't know, but they had been meaning to call me to let me know that they found hand-written instructions on how to put it all together. Three pages of hand written-instructions. WooHoo, some assistance in figuring out all the wiring etc.
Well, I started going through the other boxes to take a quick mental inventory of what was there, and what wasn't. After about 4 boxes, I found one that contained a small box with various fasteners in it. Sure enough, I counted them out, and I have the screws to secure the platform.
I also found the framework for the tunnel, and have loosely placed it all on the platform where it belongs. And that is where I'm at at the moment.
Besides the instructions my parents found (that I'm going to pick up on Saturday), all I have to go on in putting this all together are 3 photographs from 1988 and 1989. I've scanned them in and here they are.
Here is an overall picture of the full setup:
Here it is with the lights out and all lit up:
And here is a close up picture of the town, showing the track split:
I'm thinking I'm going to be changing a couple of things. For one, I think the Christmas tree is a bit out of place, so I'm not going to put that on it.
Well, that is it for now, I'll post pics as I go about my setup.
Amos
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