Following Rick's filling and gluing work is John's black painting. Although not elegant, it is an easy temporary camouflage. Eventually scenery will cover all this messy appearance.

Working carefully with the foam wire cutter Rick makes foam filler to bridge the gaps.

John applies ballast to both tracks leading to the Whittier barge.

Normally we have no indication that the supervisor is sleeping on the job. However, the nose peaking out from under the train skirt is a dead giveaway.

Friends know John as "the train guy" and so Christmas gifts can tend to revolve around this fact. One such friend gave him a nice gift wrapped in this fun train motif. Inside the metal fleur-de-lis at top left is a small photo of Terry. So John's train is headed for his soul mate.

Rick continues the laborious process of fitting small pieces of foam into the gaps between foam board and road bed. He's become very proficient with the hot wire foam cutter! This effort is very necessary to facilitate the application of Liquid Nails adhesive.

A friend provided John with two sets of five people which he used to populate the depot. He uses a little bit of wax to hold each of them in place. This will make it easy to relocate them as desired. More people are needed. Does anyone know of an inexpensive source of painted people?

Here is a nice track level view of passenger getting ready to board the train from Whittier to Anchorage. One gentleman is running to catch the train as a gust of wind tries to blow his hat from his head.

Our grandsons are visiting for Christmas! Liam and Lincoln were the first to visit the train room. They truly enjoy running the train! Their first choice was running the SD70MAC demo unit #7002. Next, they switched to bicentennial F7 #1510. The above video shows Lincoln's excited as the locomotive approaches the Portage depot.

Lincoln (red shirt) is the only grandson who hasn't had training on the RailPro system. His brother Liam is very sharp so why not have him show his brother the ropes! The above video captures how easy it is for a six year old to teach a four year old. It is so easy even a caveman can do it!

The next day all four grandsons join in together for some railroading fun. They watch intently as bicentennial F7 #1510 passes the Portage depot.

Here is a short video which communicates their excitement for running the train.

It was finally time to teach Terry the RailPro system too. Her locomotive of choice? GP40 #3015, of course! Next she runs the bicentennial locomotive with a consist of coal cars. She actually learns how to control the turnouts to retrieve the cars and take the sidings.

John took some time to paint the Liquid Nails that Rick put down last week. It is not the most elegant appearance, but the black looks better than the cream color. This will do until scenery is put in place.

On a lark, John purchased some scenery flocking. Initially, full strength white glue is used to tack it into place.

I really like the multi-colored multi-textured effect. The flocking looks so much better than just the flat green grass. More of this product WILL be purchased in the future.