Thises and Thats

 

I've been piddling a away on a few little odds and ends as of late. First and foremost, I took my son up to Day Out with Thomas at the North Carolina Transportation Museum in Spencer last weekend. Anytime I go up to Spencer, I stop in at the Little Choo Choo shop. I spied the Conerstone Municipal Water Tower on the shelf and picked it up. The stock colors were spot on perfect so all I did was use some Woodland Scenics dry transfers to add "Gallitzin" to the side of the tank. Now, rather than apply the letter directly, I applied them to some clear decal paper and then put the lettering on just like a regular decal. I then added the "Welcomes You" decal that came with the tower, did some weathering and called it done.

 

Next on my list was this small farm scene located between  Gallitzin and Cassandra. The Farmhouse and Barn are American Model Builders structures. I built these years ago and honestly don't remember the colors I used. The windmill is a Conerstone Van Dyke Farms Windmill. The uprights are painted Floquil "Rust" and the blades are Testors white.

I also went ahead I put in a gravel driveway, turf and some details. All that remains for this area is trees, both background and foreground and ballast. 

 

The last thing I took care of is a project I've been dragging my feet on for a while and that's putting a new decoder into my L1 Mike. Originally I'd used a Digitrax DZ123. It did the job but cause the shell to sit too high. This looked really stupid. After living with it for a while, I pulled the decoder out and stuck it in my Model Power mogul. While in Spencer, I went ahead and picked up a DZ126T. This is the same practically microscopic decoder I used in my Minitrix B6. This decoder is a perfect fit. All that remains is to use some fiber optic to get the headlight working. 

The Digitrax DZ126T is a much better fit