Amtrak Oregon Basements

There is a new shift occuring in the U6B project as well as the rest of my life, it seems.  You may have noticed a lack of work reporting on the "project" here and there is a perfectly good reason for that.  It is my fault for not keeping you up to date but I was somewhat busy and I wasn't building models. 

My wife and I were enfolded in the capable hands of Amtrak crews operating #'s 1 and 14 West bound and 2 and 11 East bound in between which we were basement hunting.  At least I was.  She found a wonderful 1922 vintage Craftsman house atop, if not my dream basement, at least a reasonable facsimile thereof.  Oregon is going to be very good for my boat building endeavors as well as my peace of mind (all of those trees!)

The trip was spectacular, snow at Dunsmuir and Cascade Summit and the Coast was its usual self, the food spectacular, the complaints we heard only from guests used to 5 star hotels and the Roomette too small.  Next time a full blown Bedroom for sure. The trains were on time, every time. We were amazed that people did not tip the staff who worked their tails off.

Saw very few freight trains on the Coast but many on the Sunset route. It has changed much since I last worked there and I was surprised to find that Palm Springs had moved to the short siding at Garnet! Must have been a really bad earthquake! This was before the stUPid tore up Walong.  I imagine it is much more difficult to get Amtrak up the Coast on time now.

At any rate this is just a short note to inform the followers that during the process of packing, moving, unpacking etc. there is probably not going to be much modeling occuring.  In fact most of my tools have already been squirreled away. This is not all bad.  When the dust settles there is this 20x36 foot hole in the ground I can't wait to get started filling with layout. On the other hand escrow hasn't closed and anything could happen.

Have aquired a few new Bachmann cars via Ebay. I bid only on The Favoritespot from Texas and have had outstanding results. They have a storefront and have run down stuff for me that UPS failed to deliver. The prices are impossible to beat.