John McNamara has received a roundhouse stall kit that provides suffcient parts for finishing the roundhouse roof, complete with smoke stacks, which he assembled. Andy Miller painted these, the end of a concrete wall in P-yard, and some hopper cars of his. Jared Jonas sorted some material he is donating, and worked on his ATSF 0-4-0 switcher. Ed Drozd did some hand painting work on an Art Deco downtown building. John Purbrick added some "mud" in the P-yard area in preparation for ground cover. More important, he and Jeff Birkner worked on the design of electrical operation for Phase II layout construction. Initially, this will use the few remaining blocks from venerable System 2. Alvar Saenz-Otero arrived around 11 pm to check up on progress and stayed to help John and Jeff with the electronic side of Phase 2.

The realization of a Phase II is more immenent each weekend! Alvar raised all the plywood to the same levels, and placed temporary risers in the helix areas. Once that was done, Alvar and Bill drew the desired track locations for all of staging. Now we know how well we built phase 2... its a B+. We need to add three small splices of plywood in order to make sure no track is floating in the air :-). Two of them are in the helix outside area; another splice is needed in the back of the yard. Jared put the first splice in place; the two others are comming. None of the splices are critical, and should not present any problems. Jared also layed down temporary flex track in order to ensure that the curves at the back of staging have enough clearence... 1/8" should be more than enough :-) All were deemed good enough as long as people move through staging at reasonable speeds.

DR Ed Drozd brought in his family for a tour of TMRC, and then continued to paint the tiles of a new Gifford City building. Stefano also continued to paint another building for Gifford City. Howard brought in quick connects for the air hose, so that we can interchange fixtures easily. John Shriver finished the trolley track all the way to the bridge, and began the installation of track accross the bridge.

Jared, DR Ed, and Alvar made a quick run to Star Market to resupply our stock of beverages... and saved lots of money with the current sale.

Sunday Jeff and Alvar divided the huge Sawmill piece into three much smaller pieces. After lots of careful work with the sawsall (it is contradictory, but true!), the Sawmill survided virtually intact (except for a couple of cracks on the edge of the river) and standing on its own new structure; the long truss, still attached to the river under it, sits by itself; a small third piece of moutain scenery is now together with all the other moutain scenes. And, most important of all, none of them are taking precious floor space!

Ed Drozd did some additional hand painting on his Art Deco downtown building. He is nearly finished with the front and it is quite an eye-catcher! Jared Jonas worked on a garage that will go inside the new trolley loop. John Purbrick has returned to working on his produce terminal, devoting his attention to the second building in the complex. He also added colored mud, grass, and weeds to an area near the Main Street bridge. John McNamara made some minor adjustments to the roundhouse, including gluing one of the door mechanisms into place instead of using double-sided tape. Andy Miller worked on, and tested, a steam engine of his. Alvar Saenz-Otero added a few inches to part of the Phase II banchwork. He, Jeff, John M, and the others debated and tested various possible positions for the sawmill scene.

John Shriver fixed a kink in the trolley tracks, before continuing to lay down track accross the river; he did finalize the locations of the track, but will start to lay them down next time he is in. Ed aquired two new sets of actually useful brushes; using the new functional brushes he detailed the building he's been working on: green and blue tiles, with dark green window frames. It looks very fancy! Bill continued work on the vegetable oil facility. John McNamara continued to detail the round house. He and Jeff entretained several visitors tonight (and made the system work even with so many psitons flowing into it!).

Alvar worked on the hardware installation of the P-yard control computer. The computer is a small 486 laptop which has been separated into two: the screen with an integrated trackball on one side, and the CPU/keyboard on the other. The screen is mounted on the inside of the Railway Express agency, where it will be used as the main control panel (west end of P-yard). The laptop is mounted under directly under that, in a pullout shelf. Once the computer is operation it will work with both the trackball and keyboard, given user preference.

Alvar and Jeff began to re-organize the large bookshelf so that data-books are more accessible and all scenery items are in the same general location. They then e-filled the coke machine to keep our income comming!

Phase II is on hold while we await the switches necessary to ensure our track plan is right. These switches will come in soon, at which point we'll start to lay down lattice stock.

Andy Miller installed stair railings at the Gifford City station, complete with brass railings. Ed Drozd worked on the roof access shed for the Coca-Bubblie(TM) building. Jared Jonas worked on his garage building. Bill Onorato and Jeff Birkner rearranged the book shelves and put the data books in order. Andy, Ed, Jared and Jeff went on a soda run.

Bill, Andy, Ed and Ben FrantzDale discussed the design of the new Berkmannville area. Bill and Jeff repaired the door jamb of the double door.

A very quiet evening, as several people are away on trips ranging from Alaska to Mexico. John McNamara and Jeff Birkner assisted the folks from the New England Museum of Telephony in packing Ma Roto aboard a truck bound for Methuen MA and subsequently to Ellsworth ME (http://ellsworthme.org/ringring/). Jeff also refilled the Coke Machine. John Shriver added some more trolley track, including starting work on the first switch of the turning loop near the roundhouse. Ken Terrell also visited and ran some trains.