On Monday, May 27 at 11:23 PM an EF-4 0.6 mile wide tornado roared over our home. Fortunately, our home remained standing, but did experience some damage. In regards to the Train Room the locked balcony doors burst open. Note the split frame, chipped paint and mud/debris splattered doors. New doors will be purchased soon.

Tornados sometimes do odd things. You would have thought the 170 mph winds that blew open the balcony doors would have reeked havoc inside. However, only two things were evident. One is the floor was littered with leaf and splintered wood debris.

The second is the rail cars on the barge were derailed and a few overturned. Surprisingly, the rail cars were undamaged. Not true for 53 of our trees (26 of which were large mature trees) in our yard which were uprooted. The largest tree on the property, a 60-70' giant ash, located just outside the east train room windows was totally uprooted.

Tom was a busy beaver from home as he assembled and painted several dozen bumpers. The yellow ones were installed in the three interior tracks of the diesel shop and a fourth just outside.

The black/camo colored bumpers were fielded in stub and siding tracks. A dab of Super Glue holds them in place.

LJ cut the sheet cork for installation at the Port of Whittier.

Tom finishes soldering the rail joiners in the Anchorage yard and continues on through TwentyMile.

Initial wire runs for power and switches were laid quickly and sometimes sagged below the L-girder construction. Tonight LJ shortened some of the areas of wiring bringing them in line with the pass-thru holes in the L-girders. This will prevent snagging by storage boxes or Zeus's tail.

Mikel Levine from Cheyenne, Wyoming is fabricating TwentyMile Bridge for my layout. I am paying cost of materials while Mikel is donating his labor as a thank you for my website. Mikel says of his work,

"Here is a picture I promised of the first two bridge jigs. They were cut out of medium-density fiberboard (MDF) on the computer numerical control (CNC) router I run at work. The idea is to cut all the vertical pieces a little long and clamp the top two MDF jigs together. I can then run a plane and/or sandpaper carefully along to top and bottom of the jig. This should make all the pieces exactly the same length and parallel.

"I can then take the bottom jig and glue the vertical members to the top and bottom beams to create the span. A total of fifteen spans need to be made to make five sections of the bridge."

This is an incredible project and I am deeply indebted to Mikel for his time and talents!

Tom continues to solder all the rail joints on the layout which strengthens metal joints and enhances electrical conductivity.

Yes I still had plenty of rolled cork left over from the Anchorage yard. First Mike and LJ cut the cork to fit the track mainline near the Whittier yard.

Next, Mike and LJ cut the cork to fit the east end of the Port of Whittier.

LJ applies contact cement to the cork while Tom applies a coating to the plywood. After drying for 15 minutes the two parts were joined and weights applied.

Tom and John coat the plywood and cork with contact cement at the eastern end of the Whittier yard. Lots of heavy items were used to hold it in place while we ate dinner.

Returning from our pizza repast Tom installs the switch into the Port of Whittier. After installation of a small section of track another switch is put in place. Straight thru is the depot while barge loading is to the right.

Tom uses code 83 into the Whittier depot.

Tom begins soldering track which will lead to the Whittier barge. The switch will provide two long tracks to the barge. Although this is not exactly prototypical it will definitely be more functional for our purposes.

Using the Roto-Compass Tom traces the curves for the barge stub tracks. Notice the table does not extend to reach the pivot point so Tom improvises with a wooden board and clamp.

Tom's efforts mark a huge turning point in the layout as now all track is laid. That's right, no more handling of cork or track. Done!