Another 15 hours or so of work and the ginormous mountain is finally taking shape. The north face, comprised of a dozen rock molds, is nearing the finishing line.

The western face, comprised of two dozen rock molds, is nearing completion. All that remains is rock molds for the bottom section. Soon it will be time to begin painting!

This is a short video of the hopper train coming in for the night. Jonathan's rock is in the foreground.

Rick stated the motors to the RDC are bad. I've got many locos still in boxes so I decided to sacrifice #3014's motors.

Also, Rick will come over on another day to perform belt sander work on the track east of the swing gate.

Over the past week Rick worked on passenger car coupler boxes. The right side of this photo shows the coupler box cut away on each side to allow more swing of the coupler. The center shows the coupler maximum swing before the cut away. The left shows the coupler installed and held with a screwdriver to one side showing maximum swing with cut away. Hopefully, this will prevent the car body rocking (as well as possible derailments) as shown in last week's video.

I should have kept track as to the many hours I spent on craving, gluing and applying rock molds to this mountain. My arms, back and legs are absolutely screaming. I am sure Luke Towan could have done much better! After applying four dozen rock molds (which added 20 pounds of weight) I finally decided to declare, "Good enough for who its for!" Here is the west side of the ginormous mountain.

Rick arrives two hours early for train night to have more time to tackle the hump in the track east of the swing gate. However, he first wants to test the passenger car coupler box side panel removals. No rolling to the side or derailment is seen in the video. Success!

Work now begins on the track east of the swing gate. The track is first pulled up and the ends unsoldered. Next, Rick works to remove the hump in the middle of the three foot section.

Rick smooths out the hump and the elevation is now even grade. Rick applies glue and track nails.

Now it is time to break for dinner. Terry fixes a wonderful Valentine's Day dinner complete with red plates and bowls, hot chicken sandwiches, red heart Jell-O and a massive fresh baked heart shaped chocolate chip cookie. Jackie's massive salad bar is a treat as well.

After dinner the glue has sufficiently set and Rick does some final adjustments. He does a trial run and finds none of the couplers experience up and down motions. This is a huge success!!! Three different modifications and finally the third time is indeed a charm.

After pouring days and days of effort into the ginormous mountain work finally draws to a close. Over 50 trees are added.

To cap the mountain project off Woodland Scenics snow is added to the peaks. After this photo was taken more mosses and plants were added.

Soon after the passenger train enters the south Anchorage yard it mysteriously pauses in two places. Ghosts? The mighty troubleshooter gets out his meter and finds two rail joints were not soldered. After soldering the joints the train passes through smooth as glass.

Rick begins to look at other Anchorage yard tracks and finds several needing soldered. Next week we will empty out the yard of all rail cars to see if there are more joints which require soldering.

While running the passenger train around the layout an uncoupling issue occurs just north of the Anchorage depot siding. Upon further inspection Rick locates a high point (see the area marked by the white arrrows.) This occurs when the rising elevation levels out. We will work on this next week.

Grandson Shane makes a funny face prior to inspecting the new mountain.

The Anchorage yard is the only section of track yet to be scrutinized by Rick. In anticipation of train night I had a different locomotive pull each consist out of the yard and around the layout. Somewhere in the midst of this I lost power to four of the segments. I pulled the first consist off the rails and found it did not cause the short circuit. I continued pulling trains off the track until nothing remained and still there was a short. Finally, I pulled power to the entire layout and found the shorts cleared. With the entire yard clear I took the opportunity to clean all the rails. Interestingly enough I discover for each section of track the eastern rail is significantly oxidized while the western rail is relatively clear. Why?

During train night Rick checks every rail joint and section of track. He finds two of the joints were not soldered. Whipping out his soldering iron he quickly remedies the problem. The entire yard is now in pristine condition. Now all I have to do is re-rail over 100 cars and locomotives.

Rick plays white knight and helps me re-rail all the cars and locomotives. One consist at a time we bring them back into the yard.

With about 15 minutes remaining in train night Rick begins to tackle the north Anchorage siding switch hump issue. After he crawls under the table he finds a metal tie plate joining the elevated plywood roadbed to the level section at the problem hump area. He releases the screws, but runs out of time to implement a solution. Stay tuned for more.....