Waiting With Bated Breath

I know everyone that follows this blog is waiting with bated breath for the posting of the Lynch River test bed pouring.  However that has gotten delayed far more than I expected.  I decided the river needed some larger rocks/bolders.  So I tried to make some from broken up plaster.  But these are too sharp and don't look like rocks that have traveled down a river.

Aquarium gravel appeared to be just the item.  So today I purchased a five pound bag of brown natural aquarium gravel.  I will now go through this bag and pick out the sizes and shapes I want and add them to the test bed.  Then I should be able to do the test pour.  But that will not happen until after Saturday's session.

As for the Jordan firetruck.  That is also taking more time than expected.  However today I have it completed to the last two parts and some minor painting.  So it should finish up either tomorrow or Wednesday.  Either way it should be in Thorny Point for Saturday's session.

The area I have made the most progress is on the Crew system and the Train Order system.

I found a bug in the Crew system when there are not enough FQO attendees to even fill the minimum FQO slots.  But a little work on that system and now all is right again.

I also decided to improve the Train Order system to make the order text more adaptive.  Now the order text will adjust itself based on the entries in the three TO lines of the form 19.  It also pops up selection fields when meets are required or a specific location (such as do not pass Flat Top) is needed or when FROM and TO locations are required (such as is used for work extras).  These changes should help the keyboard challenged (and you know who you are) get the orders out quicker.

I did a test pass of the Train Order system and all seems to be working correctly.  So it will get loaded to the laptop before Saturday's session.

Now all I have to do is get the track I removed for the river work back in place and clean up the train room and all should be ready for Saturday.