Almost famous

Chris was listening to the June Scotty Mason Show (http://themodelrailroadpodcast.com), and Mike Rose discusses the ongoing work for an addition to his layout. Jim Lincoln has built some fantastic trackwork (some of it in his car!) for the layout.

At the NE Proto Meet (right down the street), after Mike's clinic, I cornered the two of them because I wanted to talk to Jim about his experiences trackbuilding. A lot of what he is doing is very similar to the way I've been building track.

Anyway, I had them come on over to check things out, and showed them how I was modeling throwbars with z-scale PC board ties. He had seen some stuff online - about 4 years ago Joe Fugate and I had a long thread on his forum about building CVMW turnouts, and I posted some information and pictures (http://siskiyou-railfan.net - go to the forums). It's still hard to believe I built that prototype turnout over 3 years ago...

Anyway, they have been very happy with the results, and Mike featured it in a column in Model Railroad Hobbyist too. (Which interestingly enough brings it full circle since Joe Fugate is the publisher.)
It's actually pretty cool to see an idea I came up with not only end up in the article, but in use on another layout. Mike and Jim came up with a cool way to use microswitches to throw the z-scale throwbars (also covered by Tony Koester in a 'Train of Thought' article in Model Railroader).  One of these days I'll get up to Mike's to check it out in person.
So from now on, you can just call me 'That Guy'