SF&E set to break ground

iis612

Member
The financial crisis is not over, but is well managed.

I have a Home Depot store credit that will more than cover the needed lumber, and a few needed tools.
Construction of the Saginaw, Flint & Eastern is expected to begin shortly after a plan has been adopted.

Construction is expected to proceed slowly (by design) to conserve cash, and so that I can be certain I do everything correctly without injuring myself further.

I will post pics.

I wanted to say thanks to everyone who helped me keep my head up. If not for the folks here, I would have given up on it entirely. Ya'll Rock!!

Matt
 
every once and a while we need someone to lean on and all the fine people here do that for one another. glad to support you when tings were grim:thumb:
 

Sarge_7

Member
Great news:thumb::thumb: Just lurking around here reading the stories and seeing the pics have gotten me through a few PTSD moments lately.
 

conrailmike

Member
Hey Matt,

Too bad you're not still here in MI. Midland is getting a new coal fired power plant! Hopefully this will mean more traffic coming up the CSX Saginaw Sub. It'd be nice to see more trains coming through...
 

iis612

Member
Hey Matt,

Too bad you're not still here in MI. Midland is getting a new coal fired power plant! Hopefully this will mean more traffic coming up the CSX Saginaw Sub. It'd be nice to see more trains coming through...

I miss living in MI, except the ducking bullets part. sign1
It would be really nice to see the Saginaw Sub survive. It saddens me that they sold off such a huge yard that has so much history in it.
I heard that Dow was buying more land and moving into ethanol production, that could send some more traffic that way as well.
 

iis612

Member
I should be unveiling the 1st draft track plan by early next week. I just have to figure out how to compress a yard that has 3 departure/arrival points without losing all 3. Creative use of staging is going to be the key. I just have to figure out how to get 2 of the 3 dpeartures into 1 through staging yard, or complicate it further with the use of a lower level staging.
Lots of thoughts to ponder.
 

iis612

Member
Winging it...

In my travels over the internet, looking at the chronicles of others layouts, searching track plans, ad infinito... I have found quite a few impressive layouts that never had a track plan, just a vision and some parts.
I have decided on a benchwork scheme, which is basically a U with a large peninsula coming off of the longest side.
Outside of that, I have some designs for some key elements, but no real track plan.
I will be begining the construction in the next few days (pics to follow of course), but I am going to "Wing It".
If anyone is at all interested in following along, let me know and I will post the progress on this thread.
This is either going to work out great, or it will be a disaster. :eek:
Start the betting pool now, and elect judges to make sure the results are not tainted...:rolleyes:
 

Russ Bellinis

Active Member
Glad to hear that you are back to getting started on your layout. I never do any track drawing or layout work, I just "wing it." That said, I'm a very visual person. I saw the blueprints for my house remodel and could see exactly what it would look like when finished. My wife didn't have a clue how things would look until after they were done! If you can lay things out in your head and visualize the finished result, you probably don't need paper. The only thing to keep in mind as you "wing it" is don't compromise track alignment to try to force things to fit.

Finally when people find out how expensive everything is for model railroading, they are amazed that I would do such an expensive hobby. I tell them I have budgeted about $10.00 per week since I started in 1980. If I didn't spend the $10 on model railroading supplies, I would have spent it on something else and probably had nothing to show for the expenditure. When I first started, $10 per week didn't seem to go very far. After 28 years at $10 per week, I have everything I need except time to build the layout. Once this house remodel is done, I hope to have the time and space to build my home layout!
 
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