NCIOG visit to John & Shirley's home 1-22-11

Today we went to John & Shirley's home at their invitation to check out the current and future model railroad plans. In attendance were: Keith, Mark, Ken, Rick, Midge, Bob & Halina. It was nice having the ladies to beautify the get together! We were greeted by a nice welcome sign and a wonderful lunch spread of sandwiches, scrimp, chips, cheese dip, drinks, and homemade brownies! We chatted while we ate and then headed downstairs for the tour.

Welcome!.....to wonderful hospitality and food!

I never thought of organizing my train stuff by putting it on pegboard, but it makes great sense. This wall is in the existing trainroom which is being dismantled.

Keith & Mark discuss all the goodies on John's workbench.

Ken & Midge look on as the rest of us tour the room.

Mark is explaining something very important to Keith

Check out this neat bridge!

Organization is the key to a successful railroad, and John's using plastic drawer to keep everything in order. Note the remains of the bench work from his old layout.

More viewing of the existing layout area - soon to be reclaimed by Shirley.

Here's a view of the new layout room looking from the old layout area. This is a much larger area - thank you, Shirley!

This is the new layout room looking from the other end. The furniture will be moved into the room right behind the photographer.

Bob & Halina arrived a little later than the rest of us and stopped upstairs to grab some food before joining the group.

While the ladies chatted the guys got to work measuring the new room and making a sketch with dimensions for Keith to make get the layout plan in 3rd Planet(tm).

Here's the existing plan that John has drawn up for the new layout.

Keith got to work using John's Apple laptop to attempt to draw up the plan; however, using the Apple was at the "core" of the problem as Keith is used to the PC world. Keith volunteered to take the plan & dimensions home to whip up a 3rd Planet(tm) plan.

We all had a wonderful time and want to say a big Thank You to John & Shirley for their excellent hospitality!