Today I (James Knight) arrived late today so I'm not sure what happened before 10pm. When I got here, Malcolm Laughlin was working on attaching plywood for the new river right before the helix to staging yard, Tom O'Reilly was constructing a switch and laying track, and John Purbrick was doing his best to make a siding look utterly abandoned and neglected for the past 30 years. I decided (finally) get back to doing some track wiring, and finished two P-yard tracks that have been sitting unwired for the past year. I also started updating the documentation on the track wiring, since some of it is out of date with respect to what's currently there.

James Knight

Last Saturday, Alvar (almost single-handedly) finished construction of the F-yard helix of two-and-a-half loops so that it is now complete from the lower level at 35 inches, up to the F-yard level at 45 inches. Hooray! This helix isn't actually quite a helix, as it is designed so that much of the track is exposed and can be sceniced. There was one minor problem with the placement which required a bit of rework today, but now it is really done. F-yard plywood is installed as well, leaving only the plywood on the other side of F-yard to complete. The plan is to finish laying the main-line all the way up the helix and through f-yard to extend a "great circle" all the way around the complete layout by the time freshmen arrive this fall.

Over a couple of evenings Alan Kotok stuffed a new block card with components (the first of 3 we'll need for the part of track we're laying right now), with some help from John Shriver.

James Knight

Alvar and Malcolm discussed the plans for finishing off the plywood of F-yard (the construction of which is to occur on Saturday), while John Purbrick worked further on constructed some more switches around the back of the F-yard helix. James Knight did various updates to the TMRC website (doesn't this progress page look much nicer than before?), and there is now a new section, written by John McNamara describing the history of the club. Alvar also started working out a state diagram of how to run the 7-end demo track that we will use for the Freshman Midway this fall. The goal is to have it run 2 engines through random routes continually, so that there's always something moving to attract attention.

James Knight

Today was quite destructive. The temporary upper-loop around the control tower (which has been there 5 years) was torn apart by James Knight and Thaddeus Stefanov-Wagner. As planned Alvar Saenz-Otero with help from James constructed the next piece connecting F-yard to the Gifford City area. Alvar also installed supports under other parts of the recently installed plywood that hadn't been properly supported yet. On Monday John Purbrick installed a new cutoff from S-yard into the helix leading to Berkmanville, thus making two "Great Circles" around the layout possible once we complete the main-line through F-yard.