Gary, thank you for the tutorial. Lots of GWS will pop up in the future!

ps. GWS Gary Weather Shroud

Very interesting, Gary. While I have no use for seals like that, the technique could come in handy for something else.

Thanks for the tutorial Gary! Very ingenious and it sure has the right look on the finished structure! As Reinhard said, I have a feeling we'll be seeing a lot of these on structures in the future. Love the look of your model of the Gulf Winds structure!

Thanks guys. Just got back home from my trip, and have an ops session tomorrow at noon.

Gary,

Great to see you posting again, I really like the building.

Have fun at your op session!!

Thanks Greg.

Hey Reinhard... am finding some places to use your buildings. Two of them are going to be used in conjunction with two of Kurt's buildings to become Azrock Tile. (The 4 building complex at the front edge of the layout) This is a real industry here in Houston (well, a new company bought them and changed the name). I am not faithfully modeling the real thing, just trying to get the overall feel of the industry, with its variety of added-on sections and varying rooflines and construction methods. I'll be adding to the depth of the blue building and will be moving the "back wall" of the brick building to the right hand side.

Thanks again for the structures, they will make the completion of this part of the layout easier! The entire Azrock complex will be from structures built in Germany!

[attachment=20103]

Today's operating session was a blast. Things went very smoothly and fun was had by all. This was the first ops session on my laout for two of the guys, yet they did great. My switchlists and layout seem to be very intuitive and easy to understand. Everyone who has operated here in the past several months has been impressed, and almost all of them have asked to bring some of their friends back for a session. I'm very pleased with the operating characteristics of the layout.

A few pics from today's Ops Session:

ATG Crew 1 (Dave) bringing the BNSF GERN train across Fennel Street and over the Mason Park bridge on his way back to Pearland Yard. Dave is an operations veteran and is the driving force behind one of the clubs here in Houston. Dave was very good at "railroad speak" and I have a lot to learn from him.

[attachment=20107]

ATG Crew 2 (Eddie) on the Afternoon Local heading to Harrisburg Yard after switching out industries at Hobby Industrial Park. Eddie had visited during a layout tour in February and obviously enjoyed running trains on the Almeda Terminal and Gulf. I knew I had to have him back over for a formal ops session. Eddie is one of those guys that you can just tell he is having a good time.

[attachment=20106]

Here's Richard who manned all the UP and BNSF through trains. In this photo, he is running light on his way to pick up loaded gons from Houston Pipe and Wire. Richard is currently building a three deck layout at his home and the two of us have been having a good time discussing layout design and wiring over the last few months. Richard has also made some good suggestions for my layout, including the staging yard.

[attachment=20105]

And here is the dispatcher (me) acting like he actually knows what is going on out on the railroad!

[attachment=20104]

Gary S Wrote:... The entire Azrock complex will be from structures built in Germany!...]

I am glad to see the buildings are of use for you. So we are going to get another Germantown, TX established 2012. It's a young nation
Your ops session must be of great fun. How did the crews handle the locks? Did you "enforce" them or did they operate them voluntary?

enjoyed your sucessful build,i am envious of your talent,your truly so gifted to have had a large project that you could afford and built. if i lived in your area i would have barged in to lend a hand and learn. good luck and hope to see further progress on BIG BLUE................thanks for sharing!

Reinhard, I'm getting excited about starting on Azrock now that I have it filled in with yours and Kurt's structures. I think it is going to be a very distinct set of structures. Hope you don't mind too mcuh that I'll be kitbashing the structures a bit to fit the space and arrangement.

I'll probably change the colors a bit to more closely match the Azrock complex which is mostly white and tan and gray.

I am definitely going to enjoy working on this, and of course, I'll be thinking of you and Kurt as the construction progresses. When I have visitors, I always enjoy explaining the origin of the structures.

ward kesic Wrote:enjoyed your sucessful build,i am envious of your talent,your truly so gifted to have had a large project that you could afford and built. if i lived in your area i would have barged in to lend a hand and learn. good luck and hope to see further progress on BIG BLUE................thanks for sharing!

Ward, trust me, if you had been close, I would have loved to have the help! Glad that you enjoyed what I have so far, hope you gained from it. I do want to say that the one thing I hope you can take from all this is that I am just an average guy who "just did it". Made plenty of mistakes, but those can be corrected. We can all accomplish great things if we just roll up our sleeves and jump in.

Thanks for your kind comments.

Gary S Wrote:...I'll probably change the colors a bit to more closely match the Azrock complex which is mostly white and tan and gray...

No problem. Go ahead. The prototype did change the colors too. The blue building became brown in the meantime. Have a look at 1939 S. Santa Fe, LA.

Gary, thank you for the little tutorial – great idea and well executed. I am sure I will fall back on it someday.

Looking foward to seeing your Azroc Tiles finished. Will be interesting to see how you will turn these diverse structures into a complex.

Reinhard and Kurt, my workrrom has been a total disaster over the past couple of weeks, so much so that I didn't even want to go in there to work on anything. This evening, I fianally cleaned it up and got everything back into place, so now it is a comfortable place to work again. I'll start on the structures this weekend, mostly planning stuff for now, we'll see how energetic I get.

Concerning the latest ops session... had to share this email that I received from Dave: (I hope this doesn't sound like bragging :oops: )

Gary

That was probably the best op session I've ever participated in terms of ease of understanding jobs, length of jobs, accessibility, and pace. The layout is simply amazing and I still stand by my contention that you are in the same league with Gil (Freitag) in alot of ways. I look forward to any opportunity for a return trip.

Dave

Wow! What great compliments. Especially coming from Dave who is the leading force behind one of the clubs here and has had exstensive operating experience. Very very gratifying.