Packing for a 2 day trip for work.  Will put a hold on hopper construction for the week.

Monday, April 25
0700 
 Not looking good for railroad work this week.  Two days lost to being out of town, two more to working overtime, and Friday shot due to doctor appointments and a softball game.

 Made a styrene order today.  Got enough shapes and stuff to do a pair of the 1:20 LSC/EBT buildalong boxcars 

Thursday, April 26
16:58

 Doesn't look like its gonna be a produtive railroad week.  Working a 14 hour shift til 1900 today and a few errands to run tomorrow are gonna eat up a lot of valuable railroading time.  Might possibly get another steel hopper converted, and do some detailing on the wooden ones.  I have decided that I will cast the gusset plate, brakewheel, pawl, and brake platform braces

 Hoping some of my consignment money arrives soon, so I can order the rest of the KDs and piggyback on the brakewheels for the boxcars.  Getting the urge to work on track too, so will be getting some wood laid in for that.  Need to make some decisions on tracklayout but I could easily finish the staging yard, but once again there are some design issues to workout. 

Friday, April 27
14:48

 So far its not been a railroady day.  Doctor's appointment and general errand running ate up the morning, and so far this afternoon I've spent relearning math I forgot since high school.  Course it prolly grade school math by now.

 I was trying to figger out how much lumber I'm gonna need to do the curves on the loop around the garden plot.  I determined that a 8ft radius curve would get me the 17ft from the edge of the layout to the other side of the garden, promblem is that The Shop is in the way.  So I've decided to go with 2 6' curves connected by a straight section.  What an exercise that was figgering upthat I needed about 10 ft of 2x8 for each curve. Looks like I'll need about 30 feet of board for each end.

 I've decided to use the collery section I saved from the dirt layout as the far tangent of the loop.  That'll give me a through track, passing siding, and a spur on that side that can be used operationally.  I'm gonna put a lift out bridge on the north curve to access the garden plot and I'm considering a turnout in the south end just in case I wanna send the line around to the front of the house in the future.

 Got emails that say both the consignment checks are in the mail so mebbe next weekend I can start framing things up.  I beleive I'll start by installing the far tangent and then building the curve sections next. 

Saturday, April 28

 Well today started off right enough, but degenerated into doing yard work instead.  I did clean out one rock garden and got some new plantings in, sorta a sideways move to get railroad work done.  Have a few more improvements slated for out front.  Don't think the narrow guage will ever reach that point again, but one enver can tell about the future.

 Demolded the end hardware for the wood hoppers and have got enough for one cars worth.  The brakewheel casting was a lot simpler than I thought it wold be.  Glued together some styrene strips to make 1/4 " angle