July 3Andy painted several pieces of equipment. Bill did interior work on the vegetable oil facility at the east end of Gifford City. Alvar worked a lot on the webpage. Lots of graphical changes, to hopefully make them easier to read and more elegant. John P. did scenery work on the front side of 105th street station, to cover the ugly looking plywood with neat scenery. July 7Andy did more painting jobs, and did further research on the 50th Anniversary car production. John P. bought 8 8’ 1”x2”s, to complete the siding of the layout. Then between him and John M continued ‘mass production’ of the facia for the layout, the one that holds the Plexiglas. July 14Andy worked hard on the Thomas N. Paulson boulevard that crosses the Gifford City station yard. The main road structure is done, with the work missing to be the support structure and the passenger stairs. John McNamara brought in advanced Roundhouse parts, which are looking really good! John P. continued work on the facia for the layout. Alvar worked on the financial records of the club. Later on John P. and Alvar entered into a discussion of the System 3 power block cards. The result is that we are going to start looking into using MicroControllerUnits (MCU’s) to replace many parts that are currently needed in the design John P. brought in a while ago. July 17We are back to Tuesday work sessions, rather than Wednesday. John Purbrick surrounded Gifford City with facia, which now extends from the west end of P-yard to 105th St. Bill worked on the vegetable oil facility. James and Alvar gave birth to the long awaited TMRC-recycling center. A new ‘green-hole-in-the-wall’ appeared in the corridor outside the room. July 21Tonight we had a visit by Peter Sampson, one of the original hackers to create a control system out of the donated crossbar equipment! Meanwhile John Purbrick setup the ‘sub-pavement’ plywood for all the area around the produce terminal and the newspaper building. Andy took out some more buildings from the boxes, and found spaces for several of them, making the ‘dream’ of having all of Gifford City full of buildings closer to a reality :-) Alvar investigated on getting a cheap laptop computer to work as the Gifford City “P-Yard” control panel. Jeff, Joe Onorato, and Alan Kotok entertained Peter. John Purbrick composed a great song in honor of TMRC’s new recycling center, which was finally put into working order on July 17th. The recycling center allows all those great people that help us by buying coke products from our fundraising machine, to also return their cans right there, which ensure they will be recycled, and gives TMRC a couple extra cents to build a great layout! This goes to the tune of “Particle Man”, which everyone who visits the clubroom ought to know. Hole in the wall, hole in the wall, Drop in a can, through the hole in the wall! Make us a nickel, hear the can fall, Join in the fun with the hole in the wall. Hole in the wall, hole in the wall, Answer the call of the hole in the wall, Don’t hesitate or worry or stall, Bring all your cans to the hole in the wall. Hole in the wall, hole in the wall, Come have a ball at our hole in the wall, Plan to pass by on your way down the hall, And feed us your cans, through the hole in the wall. July 24Bill continued his work. John Purbrick began to investigate on the correct mix of plaster, water, and carbon to make the pavement for the produce terminal and newspaper buildings. Alvar first worked on the old Railway Express building, which has changed location and service to a more industrial building right next to 100th street (the new Railway Express building will go at the north-east corner of Gifford City, and will be about 4 times as big as the old one, as it will sorround the control panel laptop.) Next he worked on restoring the clock and assembly of the “Cola-Bubblie” company building. With James’ help, they made a new location for the sign. Alvar built a complete new support assembly, and put in one of the clocks that used to be around the old layout. Andy brought in a new building, which will be a large ‘trapezoidal’ building in the middle of Gifford City. He already put together the front and back, and painted the widnow frames. He also helped paint all the jobs Alvar made, which made it possible to finish the Cola sign, and to be almost finished on the Railway Express building. July 27John P. began to ‘pave’ the produce terminal / newspaper factory area. John M. painted several internal walls of the round house. Andy Miller built the facade of a new building in the corner of Main Ave and 100th street. Alvar wired the clock for Soda-Bubblie. James arrived to fix Alvar’s work :-) After just 3 fuses, 1 capacitor, and 1 regulator, Alvar and James got the Coke-Bubblie clock fully operational again! July 31Andy and Alvar did a quick trip to Pearl Arts\&Crafts and obtained cornices for the new office building Andy began last week, and tons of material that will some day (before the next century!) become the Green Building. Andy painted the cornices and installed them in the facade of the building. Alvar shaped all the vertical members of the front side of the Green Building. John Shriver continued to work on the street car ladder into the carbarn, which is very populated with switches. Jeff helped us entertain several visitors we had during the day. Alvar then twicked the Soda-Bubblie clock to use the large metal sign as a heat sink for the regulator. Bill installed some roofing on the Vegetable oil facility. On the S\&P side, Jeff and Alvar discussed the design of a new block card (previously also discussed with JP and James) for system 3. The main goal is to reduce the component count per block, and maintain ‘standard’ operation, make DCC available, allow for multiple system test, have ‘feedback’ control for the ‘standard’ controls, and allow occupancy detection in either system (which in turn allows for signals). This new card will have an MCU to control the blocks, and we are working on allowing each card to control 4 blocks, hoping that the cost ‘per-block’ will be only around $2.00 (considering we need at least 200 blocks, that is a reasonable amount!).