For those of you following each of our Thursday night sessions you know we've had a tough time getting trains to go through our double crossover without interruptions. Tom tries a new approach tonight of wiring in a "Keep Alive" (KA3) to the RailPro module. In theory, six to twenty seconds of electrical power is stored in the KA3 capacitor to provide continuous power to the locomotive in the event of dirty track, weak connections, etc.

With incredible expertise Tom shaves off a small section of the insulation on the almost human hair thickness wires and solders in the KA3. At the speed of a snail the naked F-7 unit passes through the double crossover without the slightest pause. Success! Boo-yah!

Tonight a special treat of Alaskan and Fat Tire Amber Ales awaits members of the crew.

Last week LJ used a triangular TV pillow to elevate his back to ease the job of installing Tortoise switch machines under the bench work. Tonight Mike upped the ante by bringing along a kitty TV pillow. Nothing is too good for our work crew!

LJ wires eight more Tortoise switch machines for the north end of the Anchorage yard.

Tonight was Terry's (the CFO's) birthday and everyone brought in food for the celebration. Laura and Greg brought Mexican spaghetti, Mike had jalapeño macaroni and cheese, John and Leigh brought Mexican street corn salad and Tom brought in killer brownies and cherry pie. After eating ourselves into a food coma we headed to the train room for some more fun. About half dozen of the recently installed Tortoise switch machines at the north end of the Anchorage were only partially working.

Mike is using the brown TV pillow to elevate himself so as to make it easier to do slight adjustments to the Tortoise switch machines. Mike spent most of the evening whipping them into shape.

During a recent demonstration for visiting family members GP49 2801 hit a stray wire left on the track, derailed and fell to the floor. Damage resulted to the horns, front plow, rear steps and side handrails. Tom arrived in his Locomotive Repair Ambulance tonight and loving restored the unit.

Tom turns his attention to the four iPhone 4s speakers and uses a Dremel to cut away all unnecessary surrounding casing. He solders wires to the speakers and applies shrink tubing.

F-7 #1500 comes with pre-installed sound. Tom holds the iPhone 4s speaker wires in place while John presses various sound effects buttons on the handheld controller. We are all smiling ear-to-ear to hear the sound system come to life! [FYI - Clicking on the above photo will bring up a 138MB video.]

Tonight is our Golden Spike night signifying the completion of the Alaska Railroad. Terry and John are busy in the kitchen cooking beer batter halibut, mashed potatoes and homemade bread. The beer batter recipe was provided by Curt Rudd, retired Alaska Railroad Superintendant.

Through an arrangement with Foremost Seafood John had halibut flown in from the east coast of Canada. Only 76 hours elapsed from the time the halibut was pulled off the fishing boat until it hit the hot grease in the fryer of the Combs's kitchen.

Tom's first task of the evening is to reattach trucks that broke off when the coal hopper hit the floor following a derailment at the north end switch of the double track.

Next, Tom turns his attention to the Walthers F7-A unit. He uses a small piece of foam to protect the circuit when positioning the speaker on top of it. He tapes all wires down and puts the shell back on the body. The F7-A is now complete with the RailPro module, Keep Alive and iPhone 4s speaker. One locomotive down and eleven more to go!

During the week John checked the 37 installed switch machines for proper movement, correct installation of communication lines, etc. A punch list was created so the crew could make final adjustments.

Mike begins working the punch list by tackling several switches with either partial or no movement. Lots of under-the-table acrobatics is necessary to tweak the proper alignment.

At the double crossover LJ hooks up the communication lines. By the end of the evening most of the punch list is complete. On his left hand LJ is sporting one of the tattoos given out during the ceremony.

John gathers up the crew and thanks them for helping him to achieve his dream. He presents each crew member with a custom Alaska Railroad T-shirt with a layout diagram on the back and their names on the sleeve.

John is holding the Golden Spike signifying completion of the railroad. Many thanks to Tom for providing the gold spike which was obtained from the Pennsylvania Railroad 15 miles north northeast of Cadillac.

The group toasts their success of the 16' x 27' layout comprised of 258 feet of mainline. Not pictured is photographer Terry Combs.

During his speech John said construction of the layout was his initial focus, but later realized an unexpected benefit of the camaraderie and fellowship that developed within the group.

The Alaska Railroad does not gather dust between Thursday train nights. I frequently come up to the train room to....run trains! Also, I may run the vacuum cleaner or tidy things up or just sit and marvel at the grandeur of it all. This week I spent several hours going through all the boxes in search of DCC ready locomotives so the crew could determine the number of locomotive modules, Keep Alives and 8 to 9 pin adapters to order. I believe when all the dust settles we'll have ten DCC ready units up and running under RailPro. I have another 23 DC locomotives some of which I will convert to DCC.

There have been several times when I looked back on things and said, "I wish I would've done that differently!" One of those moments was the disassembly of locomotives for module installation. I wish I had put all the couplers in little plastic baggies. Guess what? Some of them came up missing. Walthers charged me $5.00 per coupler set. I ordered three sets at $15 and had to pay over $11 for shipping and handling. Arrrggghhh! Tonight Tom replaces the missing coupler on the rear of the F-7 locomotive giving us one completed unit (module, Keep Alive and iPhone 4s speaker).

LJ is a pretty meticulous rascal and spends the rest of the evening checking out every switch. Does the handheld controller reflect the correct switch type (left vs. right) as well as the actual position of the switch (straight vs. thrown)? Is the switch thrown completely in both directions? Does the locomotive take the switch smoothly? LJ made several corrections as well as finding a defective yard switch. Under the category of "a penny wise, but a pound foolish" we discover the switch came from the old layout and was damaged during removal. Once we install a new switch the locomotive passes through perfectly. Time to order more switches!

The twins pay us a visit tonight in matching train crew T-shirts. The above photo shows the layout diagram on the back of the shirts. [To be honest, the twins weren't so much paying us a visit as wanting to play with the kitchen set.]

Since Terry and I returned this afternoon from a four day geocaching adventure we figured Pizza Hut would be this evening's cuisine. We took the pizza up into the train room and opened the windows to enjoy the first real spring-like temperatures of the year. Max stayed very close to my heels all evening. Was he hoping for pizza crust scraps? Was he trying to alleviate the separation anxiety from the past four days? Or maybe he was hoping to lick the remains of cookie dough ice cream from our bowls? Anyone who knows Max would answer, "all of the above".