Things aren't progressing quite as fast as I would like, but progress is being made nonetheless. The last two weekends were spent painting the ceiling panels and cross beams (as well as doing a few other, unrelated things around the house - cracked drain pipes don't wait). The intent was to put the ceiling in next, but while putting up the first panel, we realised that the wall panels were just a few millimetres longer than the height of the wall frames, and would therefore be difficult to mount with the ceiling in place.
After a week of straight work, with a few disruptions and two trips to the hardware store, the frame for the new train room is finished.
It was always sort of planned that at some point, our model trains would move elsewhere. The room we used until now is quite small, and while we managed to maximise space usage in it, actually working in there was not a lot of fun. There was no room for a proper workbench, and generally things were quite cramped. We wanted the room freed up for other purposes, too.
I didn't think I would have to deal with this topic at this stage. While I have started putting together some kits for…
The next post in this series was originally going to describe how I implemented the first automation experiment in the control software I am using. But I have changed my mind on that, for two reasons. One, I have something else that I'd rather write about at this time. Two, there is a not insignificant chance that I might change to a different control software in the near future. I am already evaluating options and will see where I land, at which time I will of course report on the implementation.
Thanks to Covid-19, everything is in a bit of a limbo at the moment. We started planning for a new train room, but that had to be put on hold due to impacted finances. At the same token, because of that planning, we are not making any major changes to the current layout - it's only still up so the trains can run once in a while. We need the room it is currently in, so as soon as we can resume the work on the new train room, this one will be dismantled. A new train project had to be put on hold for a similar reason.