My recent wire tree expirements has gotten me thinking about my speeder shed diorama again, which led to some re-assessments of the state of it and then the state of many of my current projects. Then I got to thinking, I should set a goal for the month of November and the list of candidates grew and decided on a longer focus. Since winter is generally the modeling season in North America (because winter has everyone stuck inside more than summer) I’m thinking of treating it like fiscal years, where it doesn’t start or end at year boundries. So what are my goals for the modeling year? (which I’m arbitrarily starting Nov 1 this year)
Short Term
- Restart Proto87 track fro the speeder shed diorama. I gave up in frustration back in March, time to take another stab
- Finish decoder install in my SW1 project (mostly add lights and close it up)
- Resume work on scratch built flat car
- Get laid track on shelf layout wired up. I’ve got some track and turnouts down but nothing wired so I can’t even run stuff back and forth
- Continue rust and chipping medium tests
- Blog more and better
- Make a pulpwood load for my pulpwood flat car
Long Term
- Finish speeder shed diorama. Last December I came up with it as a fun quick idea… so much for quick
- Finish SW1 project. Aside from decoder/lights in the short term goals this is just decals, handrails, and weathering
- Get shelf layout track complete operational
- Start shelf layout scenery and backdrop
- Blog more and better
- Empty the drawer of cars that need to be fixed (by fixing them preferably)
- Get more proficient with the airbrush
- Build jordan spreader
- Rebuild covered hoppers (these are the blue box kits I stripped a little while ago, basically assembly, paint, decals, and weathering)
- Restart work on ore cars. While I don’t model any ore handling right now the DMIR and ore cars have always been a favorite of mine. And hey, once I have a string of good looking ore cars a display diorama for them would be fun
- Build a larger diorama for photography of rolling stock and locomotives
I’m sure I could keep going with items, and that this list alone will keep me busy if I don’t get distracted (which I will). I think I’m going to try and revisit this list in a month to see if anything is completed, added, or removed. If nothing else a reminder to myself about these projects to keep things going.
Matt's Railroad Blog 
I am a habitual list-maker. I have lists like this, daily modeling to-do lists, part lists, project step lists, etc… I love seeing this kind of thing. It drives you forward looking to make the check mark next to that line when it’s done!
I’ve had mixed results with lists in the past but rarely successful with modeling. Usually the are created and forgotten and later re-found when they are woefully out of date or enough had changed they are irrelevant.
My hope is that by publishing it I can make it stick better so to speak. The blog acts kind of like an accountability partner if that makes any sense. So it’s not just I want to do that task but I said I would and I feel a duty to actually do it.
Inspiring! I too must make a list. Great idea and thanks for the motivation.